Tips for keeping your resolution for 2013

How to make goals stick

Jan. 9, 2013

Top New Year’s Resolutions Norcross cited a Harris Interactive poll of 3,036 U.S. adults last month that asked respondants about their New Year’s resolutions. Of the top five resolutions, three dealt with fitness: 1. Weight loss: 21 percent 2. Improve finances: 14 percent 3. Exercise: 14 percent 4. Get a new job: 10 percent 5. Healthier eating: 7 percent

More

ADVERTISEMENT

About 40 percent of the adult population made New Year resolutions this month. But about 25 percent have broken one or more of them. By the end of the month, that’s predicted to be about 50 percent, according to John Norcross, author of “Changeology: 5 Steps to Realizing your Goals and Resolutions.”

He suggests the following strategies for success all year long:

• Make your goals as specific as possible. Don’t resolve to lose weight and exercise more — resolve to lose 20 pounds by cutting out your 10-a-day Twinkie habit and enrolling in a spin class.

• Make your resolution public. Friends and family can help keep you accountable, and/or shame you into healthy living.

• In the same vein, try working out with others. Group classes create a social atmosphere that can make fitness more enjoyable.

• Find exercises you enjoy and can perform at convenient times.

• Be realistic. An overweight couch potato who suddenly resolves to eat only vegetables and run 10 miles a week is setting himself up for failure.

• Don’t neglect the importance of a balanced diet. Exercise is great and all, but sort of worthless if you eat sticks of butter like candy bars.

• Don’t let a one-time slip mushroom into a full-out backslide. Create a “slip plan” ahead of time that will help you when you’re tempted to skip a workout.

• Practice saying no — firmly — and avoid high-risk triggers, which Norcross defined as any people or places that precipitate the behavior you’re trying to change. Translation: Stop walking past the donut shop “just to smell what they’ve got on offer.”

• Some people find it useful to carry around a list of dos and don’ts.